A group of kids gathers at Target Field in Minneapolis, home of Major League Baseball’s Minnesota Twins. They’re smiling and proud, eating fresh salads in the summer heat. But there’s a twist. Those same 14-to-18-year-olds were the masterminds behind the recipes, as well as the gardeners behind the ingredients.
That is the idea behind Roots for the Home Team, a program that brings children from youth garden programs to the ballpark to sell salads made with their produce. The program was awarded Best Sustainability Initiative 2013 in Venues Today’s Silver Spoon Awards. Dietician Sue Moores developed Roots for the Home Team as a way to get people to appreciate and understand where their food came from.
“It fit perfectly with baseball,” said Moores. “The Twins were just at the point of moving to their outdoor field [when Moores had the idea in 2010.] It seemed like this whole new, fresh approach that fit perfectly with us.”
“As soon as you say ‘healthy,’ people think they’re not going to like it,” she added. “I wanted to change that.”
Roots for the Home Team's 'Beet the Heat' salad.
In 2012, Roots for the Home Team launched with a booth, staffed by kids selling their salads, at 10 games. The first year, the Roots for the Home Team crew only sold its items on Sundays, family days at the park. This year the program expanded to 18 games, with two salad choices at each game.
“The salads, both the menus and the recipes, are created and grown by the kids in these local urban gardens,” said Pete Spike, GM for Delaware North Companies — Sportservice at Target Field. “We support them with our culinary staff.
The Roots for the Home Team youth create six salads each season and rotate which ones are sold. These salads aren’t just tomato and cucumber. Beet the Heat Salad includes raw beets and other veggies, dried cranberries, and a hint of ginger. The Miso Great Salad features a host of fruits, veggies and greens, garnished with a mixture that includes miso paste, gingerroot, jalapenos, honey and sesame oil. The Game-On Spring Roll Salad, PaLyEsai Greek Salad, Summertime Zesty Quinoa Salad, and Roast-a-Ria Salad are all 2013 options. Recipes for this year’s and last year’s salads can be found on the Roots for the Home Team website.
Salads cost $8 each and, thanks to chicken donated by sponsor Just Bare Chicken, patrons can add the protein to their salads for an extra $2.
Roots for the Home Team sells 100 salads each game, 50 of each type the group is selling that day, although Moores estimated that about 15-20 percent is used for samples.
Roots for the Home Team's Game On Spring Roll salad.
“We usually sell out of salads by the fifth inning,” said Moores, who added that the idea wasn’t to make 500 salads and have a lot of product left over, but to see how excited the kids get when they’ve sold the last salad.
Roots for the Home Team pays for the chefs’ time, but isn’t charged for space or other related costs, instead reinvesting profits into the program.
“It’s waiving the profits that would generally go to an existing menu item,” said Spike of the Twins’ investment. “But we’ll do it as long as Roots for the Home Team continues to get public support and is able to offset some of its operational expenses.”
“It’s fun to see the kids’ faces and how proud they are knowing that the seeds they planted grew into these items,” he added.
While Roots for the Home Team is a great opportunity for the Twins and Target Field to give back, Spike said that the salad items are also popular with the audience.
“Everybody enjoys a story behind their food,” he said. “And what we’ve seen over the years is there’s always this demand for a healthier option when people go to a ballgame.”
“Roots for the Home Team combines both, and the fans have been really receptive,” he added.
The program partners with three local urban gardens: Emerge Homegrown Gardens, Urban Roots, and Youth Farm. Of the approximately 1,500 kids in the youth garden programs, 25-30 participate in the Roots for the Home Team initiative.
In addition to planting and taking care of the vegetables, and harvesting the produce, Roots for the Home Team participants have been on tours of the Sportservice kitchens. Plus, if they finish cleaning up the cart early, the kids can even catch the end of a Twins game.
Roots for the Home Team is just one facet of the Minnesota Twins’ sustainability efforts, noted Matt Hoy, Twins senior VP of operations. “It’s also how we clean the bowl, sorting through every bag of trash every night to increase our diversion rate and using sustainable products whenever we can.”
The motivation for going green, Hoy said, is to “be a good member of our community. Everyone is focused on sustainability at home.”
Interviewed for this story: Matt Hoy, (612) 659-3400; Susan Moores, (651) 653-4794; Pete Spike, (612) 659-3998